Adventures in Japan

The Woes of Jetlag

Hello! I don't know what time it is, I feel like I've been up forever. Arrived in Tokyo about half a day ago, and so far it's been a most confounded experience. Almost like a dream (probably something to do with the fact that I'm still half asleep. So, Tokyo. It's hard to describe. It sort of reminds me of Washington in the Summer in terms of the weather (hot and humid). I've hardly seen any of the city so far, but from what I have seen, it just seems incredibly clean and accommodating. Nothing bad, in other words. It's made a good impression on me if that counts for anything. A friend of my father's, Yuki, kindly picked me up from the airport, then gave me a quick tour of a few things, fed me and then showed me to where I'm staying. Which was really kind of him considering I was in a zombified state upon emerging from the plane. He has lots of friends in the audio industry. He said he'd been out to dinner with none other than Jim Marshall, founder of Marshall Guitar amps, who was currently on his fifth wife - pretty good going - apparently they've all been gold-diggers. What else? The food is incredible. And cheap. And filling. Not to mention very healthy. A pleasant change from pizza and shish kebab. Anyways, time to go to sleep, but next time I promise you some piccies of my escapades!last modified: 2005-09-08 18:13:02

A Taste Of Home

I think I worked out why Japanese people appear to be so crazy. It's mostly due to exposure to neon lights in huge quantities, and the fact that green tea has an immense amount of caffeine in it. I went to this place called Akihabara today, which is where they have this insane amount of electronics shops, and after about 10 minutes I had to sit down. It was so overwhelming. After that we went to the Japanese version of a greasy spoon - a place where a bog standard office worker or salary man might go for his lunch. imagine wooden walls, and Worcester Sauce instead of Heinz Ketchup. What!? Yes. Worcester Sauce. There's this traditional meal called tonkatsu which is a pork cutlet with mashed potato, that they sort of inherited from England a few hundred years ago, along with Worcester Sauce of all things. Bizarre. It's affectionally referred to as "Bulldog Sauce" Tokyo sort of reminds me of Washington DC. I think I already said that. There's quite a lot of cockroaches in Tokyo (as in Washington), which I don't particularly like, but I guess I could get used to it. Over and Outlast modified: 2005-09-09 18:50:18

Day 2. Or was it 3?

Today I went to see the Meiji Shrine. It was quite boring. But then, I heard the faint echos of live music. I followed my ears, and found myself at this bandstand watching a ska band. Which was nice. Then I realized that there were loads of girls around the place dressed sort of like bo peep, but more... evocative? Which was nice, too. So, then I went exploring, and realized that there were quite a few bands, just playing in this big park, and on the street surrounding it. One band (guitarist pictured) I saw, called "Everlasting Lie" were particularly good, considering they must have been about 15 or 16. Then I went out to Shinjuku. This feels how Tokyo should feel. At night, the streets are full of neon, and people running around the place. It was cool. I found somewhere to go for a beer, and then set about exploring. After a while I started to pay more attention to what was around me, and realized that every building on this street was a strip joint. Not only that, but multi-storey ones. So I opted to swiftly evacuate to the haven of the nearest bar. Which was nice. But it took forever to get a drink. I was sitting at the bar and a waitress took my order. She typed it into a gizmo, and then 5 minutes later, the barman infront of me, poured a beer and gave it to me. I guess that's one way of doing it. And I got some speakers woohoo!last modified: 2005-09-10 23:21:19

Hmm. Time for Pocky!

Met up with this guy Abe-san - the stuff of legend (pictured right). A friend of my fathers. He took me to his neighborhood int Tokyo where there was a festival, which was nice. But then we went to a festival, where Abe showed me a puddle where a Shogun once drunk water from woohoo. And I made friends with a goldfish (below). Actually, obviously, obviously, it's a carp, but carp are just genetically modified goldfish (well the gold carps, anyways.) Then we went to his house, which was a bit boring at first, but then the sumo came on tv (pronounced smow which really threw me at the time). How could sumo not make you laugh. It's actually quite good after watching for 2 hours. Now there's definitely some sort of tactic to this game. Either move out of the way of the attacker and push him out of the ring, or if you're big enough, just push him over. I learnt 2 other important facts from this experience. That, Mongolians only have one name (no surname), and that Russians and Bulgarians can do sumo too, but they look stupid. Then we had traditional japanese pork cutlet (tonkatsu) with traditional japanese worcester sauce (again). Which was nice. Then he showed me his tape machine (above). This tape machine is basically the daddy of tape machines. And Abe-san is the daddy of making tape machines. He is the worldwide king of tape machines. (or was, he's retired now). He's cool. Now, the question is. Do I go to Disney Land? answers on a postcard please. And then I saw this old man practicing his golf swing with an umbrella in the underground, but didn't want to shame him by taking a piccie soley for my and your amusement. maybe next time I'll be less tactful.last modified: 2005-09-11 23:21:05

Another Day, Another Dollar

Don’t worry, folks, there’s plenty more cliches where that came from! Today, I stayed in, so I could work. So I did nothing. So, I’ll use this opportunity to describe my living quarters. A modest room, paper thin walls, a desk, shelf and bed. I’ve acquired a set of speakers (~£10 – bargain basement.)

Uh… Flatmates. There’s 3 of them. One called Karl, he’s either South African or Australian, although my bet is on the former. He’s doing some sort of business thing.

Then theres Peter. Peter is cool. He’s from Germany. He’s doing an internship with Volkswagen that involves crash test dummies etc. Sounds like fun.

And finally, Monica, who, from what I can tell, is Chinese. She’s a singer, an international woman of Mystery, i.e. she’s not around the flat very often.

And of course there’s the sign on my door (pictured right). In case of earthquake/fire/etc you’re supposed to break the perforated hole in my door and escape down a ladder. When I first saw it i thought it was a fucking joke.

Tomorrow will be better I promise.

last modified: 2005-09-12 16:59:21

Soba and Warm SakŽ

Today’s mission was to buy an alarm clock. So I went to Akihabara (Electric City) (again!), to find one. Akihabara is an area of Tokyo, filled with electronics. Stores. Think of anything that runs of batteries. You can get it here. In silver, in black, red, blue, green etc. What’s weird about this place is it has everything you see in England, and then lots of permutations on the same idea. I guess those permutations just don’t make it to England. But they’re still cool. The picture above is of a gigantic model of a woman playing guitar above a music shop I happened to pass. The leg sticking out over the shop front swings left-right-left-right. Hypnotic.

Then I went to the Imperial Palace, and it was shut. But I did manage to take a rather nice picture of a tree (pictured left.) I also discovered the wonders of Sake. Where have you been all my life. They sell it in a carton, like Um Bongo, for about 50p, which is really not that bad. And you can be a closet alcoholic in public, behind the facade of an innocent tourist drinking fruit juice. My flatmate just sneezed. That’s how thin the walls are here. I think they’re made of cardboard, but am too scared to touch them in case my finger pokes through.

last modified: 2005-09-13 16:47:07

Never Again! (well maybe...)

Hello, once again, from Tokyo. Today was a work day, so no adventure for Marek. I did however, upon the advice of Steffi’s brother, Sam, try ”Royal Milk Tea” (spelt ”royaru miruku chiii” in japanese underneath). Now, coming from a tea drinking nation to another tea drinking nation, you’d think the japanese would appreciate how important it is to make tea properly. And this is an Incredibly Bad Example. First off, it’s Ice Cold. Which doesn’t agree with me whatsoever. Second of all it tastes more like fruit juice than tea. Some non-descript, laboratory-grown, obese, overripe fruit. However, I’m still drinking it so it can’t be all that bad.

Off to meet, a friend, or more of a friend of a friend, Oli, who’s been in Tokyo for a year and is going back on Friday. Hopefully, be most enjoyable, and informative. And also it would be nice to talk to someone from the same neck of the woods about this place.

last modified: 2005-09-14 11:12:51

...no... it's.. it's Too Much Coffee Man!

Sorry for no updates yesterday. I’ll try to keep it chronological. So I met up with Oli, and we bought some beers and sat in this garden attached to a small shrine in his area. There’s a pond there, with turtles in it (although I didn’t see any.) Apparently Nadz tried to feed them beer when he visited. Whilst sitting there, I saw these little friendly bugs fly down and sit on my arms, and help themselves to my blood, which I didn’t really think much of, until the next morning, at which point I realized that my arms were covered in mosquito bites. I counted 20 on my right fore-arm before giving up.

Yesterday. Japanese people drink waaaay too much coffee. I met up with Abe, and one of his friends, Mr. Otta, and we went for eel (which is not as revolting as it sounds), followed by coffee. Since I’d had a can of Mountain Dew to get me out of bed, followed by countless cups of green tea (which contains an immense amount of caffeine), this coffee had an entirely laxative effect on me. I felt like I was floating for the rest of the day. Or moving faster than I really was. Or dizzy ad nauseum. Or like having a heart attack. I guess I’m just going to have to build up my tolerance.

Also there were these two younger guys who’d both lived in the states for a while so there English wasn’t that bad, and they’d offered to show me around some places. That was when we found that (pictured above). I thought they only had those in Ireland, you say? Only the Japanese could make something as useless as a solar powered torch. (Yes I know it gets charged up during the day so you can use it at night, but it’s the concept.)

And Then, if you’re still reading, Oli had a sort of goodbye party at his place which was cool, I got to meet English speaking people, talk about gangster rap, about a place in Tokyo that has Slayer’s ”Rain in Blood” on their karaoke playlist, and other wonders of our civilization, that I can’t remember because I got completely and utterly mash-potatoed! Woohoo. Twas good. No clue how I managed to get back to my place though.

last modified: 2005-09-16 05:45:27

Like a Paper Doll

Good Afternoon! Another exciting few days. I went to spend a couple of days with Yuki at his house in Tama. First of all, his house is incredible. It looks like one of those super modern houses you see in architecture books, all made of wood. Then there are a couple of washitsu – japanese style rooms. One of which they kindly offered to let me stay the night in (pictured). It was great. I met Yuki’s wife and son who were very accommodating. They fed me something called o-konomi-yaki, which is like hash browns with loads of stuff in it. Then I had a bath in their colossal japanese bath, which you can practically float in it’s so deep.

Then they gave me this outfit. It’s a traditional sort of bathrobe you’re supposed to wear after having a bath. super comfy. and highly ventilating.

The next morning, Yuki and I headed out in the car. We drove to the hills. Then we took a cable car up a mountain, to a shrine at the top, the actual shrine wasn’t all that, but the journey to it was wonderful. There were loads of 1000 year old trees, and stone things, and a Torii (pictured). Usually Toriis are at the entrance of the path to the shrine, which, Yuki tells me, could be called that because tori is bird in japanese and birds like to sit on it. but I didn’t see any.

Then we walked all the way down, got in the car and drove to a place where we had lunch and went to a Sento (japanese public bath), which is where you get butt-nekid and get in this massive bath with all these old japanese dudes. It wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be, although I was sorely dissappointed to find that men and women had separate baths. Guess it saved me some embarassment in my nether regions. It was cool though. Then we got in the car again and drove around the mountains, took in some of the picturesque landscape, and then I went back to Tokyo, where I fell asleep instantly, woke up and wrote this. Off to Yoyogi park now for some free live music.

Oh and a tree for Adam

last modified: 2005-09-18 07:29:46

Respect The Aged

Quite an adventure yesterday. I went to Yoyogi Park (same place I went last week), which is where they have bands play and stupid Elvis impersonators dancing around. I was going to take a piccie of these guys for you but they just looked so incredibly stupid I didn’t even want to watch. Instead, I saw this great punk band called 767 on the pavement, and met this guy david (the big german dude in the photo.) And got pissed in the park like a teenager again Woohoo!

Then I came across these guys, doing sort of Japanese R’n’B/rap which was quite atrociously bad. Picture included, because I couldn’t get over how hilarious it was. One of the guys just sang falsetto (high-pitched like the Bee-Gees.) I strongly resisted the temptation to burst into a fit laughter.

After that, and after most of the bands had gone home, I found this extremely tight (and obviously funky) funk band (but no singer), so I decided to indulge in some drunken dancing to that for a while. Then they let me join in on the guitar, and then on the drums. The guitarist is right-handed, but inspired by Jimi Hendrix, he learnt to play left-handed. Now that’s dedication. And a damned good guitarist he was. And from out of nowhere this guy laid down a wooden board and started TAP DANCING (pictured). This is the craziest place. If you come to Tokyo, go to Yoyogi Park most definitely.

Once that was finished, there were no more bands, but I heard some percussion thing going on in the park, so I followed my ears (as it was really dark.) There I met a Londoner and an Australian, they took me to this place they called ”The Bench” which is just a bench, but it’s outside a bong shop in this red-light district, and we sat there and drank and laughed at stupid people.

Then this fat american goth, his annoying goth girlfriend, and their side-kick started talking to us, and then we all went to a drum’n’bass bar/club thing, where there was an open mic, so the Aussie had a go at MCing, which I thought was blinding, as I was blind-drunk. I’m sure the other people weren’t so happy. Then I had ago, and of course I blew them all away. Actually, No. I had a go. It became quite a short and frustrating affair. But! (you should never start a sentence with ”but”, let alone use it as a whole sentence, but in this case it’s OK.) But, no-one seemed to care. Must be all the karaoke. Quite a night!

Today is Respect the Aged Day or something, so no-one goes to work. Like a bank holiday. But obviously I’m working today. For me it’s, No Rest for the Wicked Day.

last modified: 2005-09-19 07:20:26

Type, Type, Type AKA ...please... no... no more!

Today was a Work Day. Which means sit at my desk all day and type until my fingers drop off. Yesterday was a Work Day too, but even less exciting. This morning, because the tinternet were down, I went shopping for food. I found a big pack of tuna (raw not tinned) and since this is my favorite thing to eat ever, I decided to have it for breakfast on its own. It stayed inside me for a grand total of, um, 10 or 15 minutes. It was rather tasty though.

Then the internet came back on, so I did some work (I couldn’t possibly tell you what I’m working on, because I’d have to kill you. yes, really) interspersed with reading my new favorite book, entitled, ”The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”. Yes, I know it’s a kids book, but why should kids have all the fun? (that was a rhetorical question) (I just contradicted myself.) I will henceforth, Shut Up (until tomorrow).

last modified: 2005-09-20 13:07:05

Please Skip to the Next Entry

Today, Yuki and I went to Yokohama (Yuki’s hometown) and visited a show called A&V Festa. It’s a sort of exhibition for hifi, speakers, projectors etc. I’m going to try not to sound as nerdy as I really am, because I’m sooo good at sounding geeky, but terrible at concealing my geekiness, so this is practice for me. It was rather enjoyable. We saw dodecahedronal speaker enclosures tessellated with 4-inch mid-range drivers. This, in effect, eliminates the problem of poor off-axis frequency response, but causes phase distortion, which means they sound crap. Har har. Enough of the geek talk.

No, no, really, it was cool. We went into this room with speakers all around us (24 of them I think) and they played us some classical music, which was recorded with 24 microphones. I don’t pretend to have good ears, but if you shut your eyes, you are in a concert hall, and the opera singer is about 20 metres away from you. It was incredibly good. Except for the 20 or 30 or so bored Japanese businessmen around me, rustling paper, clearing their throats, and generally ruining it for everyone else. There was some other cool stuff, but only stuff I would find cool because of my quadrilateral predicament. I’m a square.

Enough! Then we met up with Abe, and went to Chinatown – hence the dragon above. We went to this restaurant there, and had tonnes of food, I still feel sick from eating so much. It was delicious though. Completely different from English Chinese food. There’s something fishy going on in London’s Chinatown (and all the other chinese take-aways and restaurants I’ve been to in the capital.) Everywhere the food tastes the same. Like there’s some secret ”English Chinese Recipes Book”, that they hand to you when you get off the plane in England, and tell you that you will get deported if you are caught deviating from the recipes. Sorry I should be talking about Japan. Apparently, the Chinese restaurants here are all different. That just sounds BIZARRE to me. No sweet and sour chicken on this menu! (No dinner for you, Campbell). I promise tomorrow I’ll have something more exciting to write about. I’m going on an Adventure.

last modified: 2005-09-21 14:42:22

Marek Vs. Tokyo

Today, I got pissed off. I found myself waiting for the green man, so that I could cross the road, which was empty. I didn’t want to cross, because none of the other people next to me were crossing. I felt like I had been waiting for an age. If you ever go exploring Tokyo on foot, and plan to cross any roads, make sure you bring a good book. These people have too much patience, which is surprising when you consider that you have to go out of your way to find a drink that doesn’t contain a good dose of caffeine (caffeine makes you impatient).

I got conned today, too. I thought it would be cool to go to the japanese sword museum (I saw the tortoise on the way). It cost 500 yen, after giving up trying to convince the woman I was a student and left my card at home. She gave me the ”Manual for Appreciating the Japanese Sword”, which was good, because I just ran out of toilet paper. The swords they looked mostly the same, with subtle differences, and none of them had handles, they’d been removed. Not to sound uncultured, but it was pretty dull. One room with swords, a few drawings of swords and a security guard making sure you don’t take any photos (which would have pissed me off if there had been anything worth photographing). They also gave me ”Manual of How to Handle and Take Care of Swords”, which was completely pointless, because they wouldn’t even let me have a go. More bog roll.

I’ll try to be positive, now. I found a Colossal art supply shop with maybe 500 varieties of biro, so I bought some felt tips because I left mine back in London. I only bought black, brown, red, orange, yellow and purple because the confidence tricksters at the sword museum had drained me of my hard earned yen. But they’re the best felt-tips (Berol).

After a bit of window shopping I decided to see if I could have dinner by eating as many samples from the three colossal food halls (like twice as big as Selfridges’ one). I got a piece of garlic flavoured stale bread, and a chicken kidney on a toothpick. No such thing as a free dinner? I thought I did quite well!

last modified: 2005-09-22 14:29:37

KING motherfucking DJANGO

Once again, our bold and heroic protagonist ventures deep into the heart of Tokyo, this time, in search of the infamous ”gabowl” establishment, where King Django, (singer of Stubborn Allstars, producer of The Slackers) is supposedly issuing a performance.

Enough of that. I finally, finally found the venue after wondering around for a few hours, and met these guys outside. One of which was called Happy. He’s living in Japan, but is originally from New York, and he’s friends with the band. Nice guy. Also The singer for The Slackers, before they were called The Slackers. So, we were waiting outside for their friend, Jeff. Jeff turned up, and informed me that his name wasn’t Jeff, but Django. (as in ”Django was a boss DJ” or ”Django don’t give a fuck/ so Don’t try your luck/Or I run you down with me Lyrics Truck” – pictured above). We all went to the cashpoint and I talked to Django about producing the slackers, which was cool.

So, then we went back to the venue, and they stuck me on their guestlist, which was incredibly nice of them. Actually they were incredibly nice. If I was them I probably would have told myself to stop being so annoying or fuck off. Then they had a 90 minute set, which was incredible. This guy can really toast. Not only that but he played the trombone, the ukelele, the melodica, and the harmonica too (but not all at the same time). A truely excellent show, but eventually it was time to go home for cake.

This is photographic evidence of my flat mates. I DO have friends. Today, is Peter’s birthday (the guy in the middle) so last night, around midnight, we got him a cake (a very very tasty one) and some beer. and got very drunk, which was nice. Until the next day.

Today, however, I have an incredibly bad hangover. I went to sleep, and woke up close to 2pm, still drunk and dying of thirst. My lungs were shrivelled up like a raisin (with apologies to The Pharcyde). Went out, did some shopping, went to a sushi bar, where I ate like a king for £1. £1! And you thought tokyo was an expensive place. You just got to know what to ask for.

last modified: 2005-09-24 12:27:14

Game Over!

After a whole day of not being able to move due to the previous night’s antics, I decided to go out for exploratory purposes. I went to this place called Omote-sando, because I thought it had a cool name. It seemed full of clothes shops, and posh designery crap, which I was completely uninteresting to me, so I went back to Yoyogi park where I met some headbangers:

They weren’t just headbanging, but headbanging in perfect time to each other. Japanese teenaged girls are really good at doing things in time with eachother I noticed.

The band was this Iron Maiden type band. They were alright, but nothing special. Then the feds (pictured above) turned up to stop the party (I think on some Sundays it’s illegal or something). They told the band ”one more song” (obviously in Japanese), so the band said ”Ok” very politely (in Japanese, again) and did the old trick of playing 20 minutes of songs back to back without any gaps in between so it seems like one song, which I considered to be very punk-rock of them (or possibly spinal tap of them).

Then I went to macdonalds. I don’t like macdonalds really, but I was dying for something cooked, and not noodley or ricey (which can be hard to come across here). First of all, looking out the window, I noticed these two obese Japanese women do what could be categorised as a natural phenomenon. They walked parallel to macdonalds, pretending not to notice. As they got close to the door, some kind of magnetic attraction from the burgers swayed them off their course towards the doors, but luckily they managed to escape the effect of the burger gravity.

one other thing struck me, as I sat from my vantage point (of macdonalds) peering onto the street. This dog’s expression. People walking past the dog think ”Oh what a cute little puppy, it’s doing its puppy face, I bet it wants a doggy biscuit”, when it’s mind is on other, much less innocent things like ”Damn, If I wasn’t attached to this fucking leash, I’d show that tasty chiwawa’s ass a good time.” Filthy dog. No dinner for you. But it’s true! look!

last modified: 2005-09-25 13:40:42

To Be Acoustic

Took it easy today. Went with Abe-san to meet a guy called Toshi Ide and his wife. Toshi-san is a producer, songwriter and excellent guitarist. Find his stuff at t-b-a.jp if you can read Japanese. Good domain, eh? It was great meeting him, he used to be a software developer for Fostex, a big audio company my father used to work for. He lived in silicon valley for 12 years doing that. And nowadays he spends his time between writing/recording songs and writing books on being enviromentally friendly. So we had plenty to talk about. It was great, we met at the station, and drove about 30 seconds round the corner to this amazing tofu restaurant. Like nothing I’ve ever experienced.

We got to the restaurant, which was this old-style japanese building with a beautiful garden (above) in the centre. We were led to this dining room, where we had to take our shoes off because the floor was made from tatami mats. The meal was excellent. Like, 10 different ways to cook tofu, then a little fried fish, that had a gaping mouth, like that was its last expression when it was thrust into the deep-fat-fryer thing. Delicious. After the meal, we went out the doors, and I found someone had turned my shoes around to face the other way (facing out of the room) which was Exceedingly nice of them.

Then we went to Toshi-san’s house, he played me some of his music which was cool, showed me his handmade ukelele made of Koa (a wood that only grows in Hawaii) and his home-studio. Then I played him some caligula-style math-metal, and some drive by diablo. Then we had cake and then I went home.

last modified: 2005-09-26 12:42:29

Cultural Ingnorance to Comical Effect...

This morning at 6am, I went to the largest fish market on the planet (called Tsukiji). It was pretty cool. I’d be more enthusiastic, but I’m in a bit of a sulk at the moment. I don’t need excuses, I just am. I saw a head of a tuna-fish which was almost disney-like in its enormity. I went with a buddy called Ryuta Tanaka. We had a breakfast of a colossal amount of sush (which is cool because you know the fish you’re eating was killed that morning – possibly the freshest fish you could possibly ever eat), then went to a Japanese garden, which was nice. Forgive me for my disenchantment today, I’ve been up for rather a long time.

In the fish market, I did happen to stumble across this (pictured) which reminded me of a… well, a sea urchin of some variety. Then I went home and worked for 7 hours. Bummer. I need to find a better way to fund my escapades. Any offers? Tomorrow, I promise you an infinitely better update. I promise!

last modified: 2005-09-27 17:03:19

Run to the Hills

Ha ha, I lied about this next entry being an exciting one. I worked all day (almost), then travelled across to the other side of Tokyo, to a cash machine, because that was the only cash machine I knew that definitely worked with my card. When I got there, I withdrew about £250 of yen, and then it said ”New balance: 0 yen” so I (proverbially) shat myself. But it was alright, because I checked online, and they only charged 12p commission. 12p!! I told you it would be exciting!

Then I had a walk around, and I heard metal music coming from a bar, so I crossed the road, and went into this place where there were hundreds of people, punching the air in perfect syncronisation (which only the japanese can do) to this Japanese version of the bastard son of Iron Maiden and Gary Glitter. Then I looked around, and realised I was in Tokyo’s brand new Apple Store. It was really quite bizarre. Then I got on the train and went home. Tokyo: 1, Marek: Nil.

last modified: 2005-09-28 15:15:58

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil

No, it’s not a postcard, I actually saw this waterfall today. The most incredible thing you’ve ever seen in your life, unless you’ve seen Peej drink a litre of beer in 4 seconds. Today, Yuki took me to Nikko, the town where he was born, and we saw this. It was a most hypnotic experience (it’s called Kegon-no-taki – the Kegon waterfall, if you ever get a chance.) click here for a bigger picture.

Before visiting the waterfall, we went to the Toshogu Shrine in Nikko, which is colossal, and also overwhelmingly well made. Thoroughly adorned with wooden carvings, like the one above, sure you recognise the phrase, mizaru, kikazaru, iwazaru

Yuki brought a little stove and some lipton yellow teabags and we stopped off at various incredibly beautiful views (that curiously reminded me of where the Loch Ness Monster lives) and enjoyed a good brew. It was like Middle Earth – I took 52 photos today.

Then we went back to Shinjuku station, where we feasted on my new type of favorite sushi – Saba, or mackrel, depending on what country you come from.

last modified: 2005-09-29 14:55:08

Isn't she ravry

Since I got here, I’ve managed to drink my local vending maching entirely out of Mountain Dew. It’s like having 3 cans of coke at once. Guess now I’ll just have to have myself 3 cans of coke for breakfast. Back to the story… I worked all day, then went to visit a friend for a drink. Then the next day, my flat mate was singing in Roppongi, so I went down…

I got there early, so was subjected to the warm-up acts. Think Magic FM, only out of tune. Most songs were original, but I did get an opportunity to hear renditions of classic songs, such as Stevie Wonder’s ”Isn’t she ravry” and the epic ”Crose to you”. Some how I miraculously managed to keep my breakfast down.

There was this one guy who seemed to think of himself as a cross between Michael Jackson and Freddie Mercury. I dread to think where that leaves his sexual orientation. Then he told people to start clapping in time and then started rapping. At which I started laughing out aloud, but no-one could hear me. At least, for £10 worth of yen, I got a free felt-tip pen (purple) My flatmate’s band was pretty good though, a good strong voice, there was also a flautist (flute) a keyboardist and a guitarist. However, I don’t think the guitarist knew that you have to keep tuning your guitar once you’ve bought it. A for effort though.

Then I went to this shop called ”Don Quixote”, or ”Donkey” for short. This shop is colossal, and sells pretty much anything you want, including this rather fetching pink gimp-balaclava thing. I just realized I should have put it on for the photo. But in the same shop you can also buy food, sofas, bycicles, porno, a £10,000 watch, a ”mobile brain teaser”, fireworks, a gucci handbag, pretty much anything you could possibly think of (except for live animals, but more on that later)

In the early evening, I met up with another friend, and we walked around a bit, and then it was late so we went to Tokyo Tower, but it was really expensive to go up, so we just stayed at the bottom because it looked pretty incredible from down there, and talked nonsense for maybe 4 or 5 hours. Which was incredibly enjoyable.

The next day, after being eaten alive at night, by my buddies the mosquitos, I went to the zoo. Ueno Zoo was probably the best zoo I’ve ever been to, it has every animal under the sun, including a giant alligator, a giant tortoise, really stupid monkeys, tigers etc etc. And also this dreadfully paranoid animal (i don’t know it’s name, answers on a postcard) here’s a movie of it, waiting for the sky to cave in (it’s sideways because I don’t know how to use a camera) It just looks incredibly human when it does that twitchy looking up thing. It was cool, I watched this movie at least 20 times after I shot it.

Then I went to see my friend the right-handed left-handed guitarist’s funk band which was nice. Then I went home and watched a Finnish Startreck Parody. Today, I work.

last modified: 2005-10-03 03:53:32

Goodbye, Grey Sky; Hello, Blue!

I haven’t made an entry for quite a while. Unfortunately it’s not because I’ve been busy, it’s just that I haven’t done a hell of a lot. It’s like I’ve stopped being a tourist, and now I’m just living here. Tokyo’s novelty has slightly worn off on me. It hasn’t lost any of its charm, but I’ve seen it now. The culture is different, obviously, but the everyday life is quite similar. It’s just bog standard city life. It’s maybe a bit better. The weather here’s not so great now, though.

So, it’s time to move on. Tomorrow, it’s to Okinawa! Okinawa is load of tropical islands about 2 hours south by plane. I’m staying there for 4 weeks. First stop is Naha, the capital of the Okinawa prefecture.

London: 13¡C
Tokyo: 24¡C
Naha: 30¡C

Definitely a worthy location of Summer extension.

last modified: 2005-10-07 05:58:03

beer + karaoke = trouble

(I wrote most of this on my way to the airport in tokyo) 3 hours sleep, rudely interrupted by the room inspection I had arranged for 10 am. I had 5 minutes, to pack the rest of my stuff, brush my teeth and get out of the premises. As you can tell from the picture, I’m not a happy bunny. Last night was a crazy one.

Last night. I had this big plan for a night out. I arranged with my flatmates and some more people to go out to a thai restaurant and then to do some karaoke. It turned out that all my friends except for two, had stood me up. I wasn’t impressed. Actually I was. It’s not every day you get to go to dinner with two beautiful japanese ladies all to yourself. So, I guess my flatmates missed out.

Next to karaoke. We booked 1 hour in this place. I did a few songs, they did a few songs, and then it was time to go – last train was at midnight. Then my friend asks if I want to do karaoke ALL NIGHT. I couldn’t say no. (in hindsight, I had a plane to catch the next morning, so maybe I should have said no, if I was being sensible)

We went to this place, where you pay 3000 yen (£15) each and they give you this room with a karaoke machine and a telephone that you pick up and say ”beer” and they bring you beer. As much as you could possibly want of it. So obviously you can imagine how this ended up. 6 o’clock in the morning, still going strong, Marek tanked to the eye-balls, singing ”I’m Just a Girl” in falsetto. If there was anything better than sliced bread, it would be the combination of karaoke and all-you-can-drink-beer. I can’t remember ever having so much fun. What’s more the karaoke machine tells you how many calories you burnt after the song – I must have lost at least 25 calories. That’s like half a sip of beer. woohoo!

last modified: 2005-10-12 04:34:53

Home away from Home

So, now I’m in Okinawa. It’s a nice place. I got sunburnt within about an hour of arriving here. Then I checked in to my hotel, and went to sleep. I woke up and went to this festival. It’s the biggest festival in Okinawa, and it involves a kind of tug of war with the Worlds Largest Rope. Every piece of tourism literature I’ve read on the subject is very proud of the fact that it’s approved by the Guiness Book of Records.

The festival was cool, but there were too many Americans with crew-cuts. This is because there are a lot of US army bases on Okinawa. The next day I went out for a wonder through the market, where I met this snake. They put the snake, alive, into some alcohol, which it drowns in and releases its venom. And people actually drink this shit. I must try it.

I suddenly realized to my own horror, that I was wearing my Bad Brains ”Banned in D.C.” t-shirt, which depicts the Whitehouse getting attacked by ligntening-bolts. Which was probably a stupid idea, being surrounded by all these gormless US army people. I promptly evacuated the scene to avoid getting beaten up by some patriotic idiot.

The national dish here seems to be ?????, which is pronounced takoraisu. which is tacos with rice. Quite bizarre. Nice though.

Yesterday, I moved from my hotel to a £5 a night dormitory, which is actually really quite nice. There’s guitars and other instruments hanging off the walls, and you can just pick them up and play them. And there’s also some musicians there. Last night I was up until 3 am chatting in broken english/japanese, jamming, drinking on the roof of this place. It’s cool. None of this is particularly exciting. I’ll make sure I have something better to write next time.

last modified: 2005-10-12 04:36:32

Control yourself, Daniel-san!

Yesterday, I went to the beach in Naha. It was shit. The swimming area was about the size of a tennis court, and past that there’s an expressway coming out of the sea, blocking one’s view of the horizon. but I needed the excersise, so I swam there for a couple of hours.

On my way back, I found this Chinese garden, actually made by chinese people. It was cool – I fed fish food to the carp and turtles in the ponds, and in the middle there was this small castle with a moat around it, made from rocks haphazardly placed on top of eachother. And a waterfall coming down the front of it. You can go into the castle, and stand behind the waterfall, or go up to the top and sit on the roof terrace.

Then I walked back into town for some lunch, and this fat american girl approached me saying she was a missionary, then I gave her this look. Maybe she could feel the wrath of satan in my stare or something, because totally suprising me she didn’t attempt to push any of her rubbish onto me. Instead she complained about the weather. Some people are never satisfied. She also said she found it tough spreading the word to the natives, because she doesn’t speak Japanese. she really was that stupid. I so wanted to say something along the lines of why doesn’t she take an approach of physical force using the Good Book to beat them into submission. I hate these people so much. It pisses me off, seeing missionaries here. One thing that makes Japan such a nice place is that they’re not so serious about religion, and what’s more is that their national religion (shintoism – closely related to bhuddism) doesn’t involve killing people or crashing planes like christianity and islam have done. Strike me down with a bolt of lightening. Sorry I’ll stop complaining now.

Last night, I stayed in the hostel, then this old Mr Miyage guy forced me to sit down and drink ”Japaneeze hWhiskey”, which was about all he could say in English. It was great, more old people came and sat down and we all got drunk. Most of the people in this hostel are artists that sell their wares on the main street, and have been living here for months. Mr. Miyage was a sushi chef, but I guess he’s retired.

last modified: 2005-10-14 04:00:55

Note To Self...

Hello. No, I’m not drunk, for a change. And no, I’m not in an internet cafe, because this £5 a night youth hostel has wireless internet for free. But it’s slow. I feel like I’m being Hoodwinked.

Note To Self… NEVER do Yoga again! In the hostel where I am staying, there’s this guy, only known as ”The Yoga Teacher” (pictured in a ring of stones prior to The Yoga Lesson, who rounded up some people for a ”Yoga Party” on the beach, under a full moon. Being intrigued as to what a ”Yoga Party” would entail, I went along. Not such a good idea, unless you count the fact that now I know not to try it again. It was basically a Yoga class on the beach. So I did Yoga. I’m not a Hippy, I promise. I couldn’t do half the things everyone else was doing, and The Yoga Teacher had to ram his knee into my back so that I could get into the right position, which lasted for about as long as he kept his knee in my back. In retrospect, though, I thought it was quite cool. But at one point he told us all to put our hands on our heads and say oooooooooooooommmmmmmm. At which point I guiltily burst into laughter.

If the yoga wasn’t physical torture enough, there was the ride home. 8 of us in a 3 door car on a bumpy road for an hour. I thought I was supposed to be on Holiday. Then I got 6 hours sleep, and then to Tokashiki Island.

Tokashiki Island is about an hour away by ferry over some very choppy sea (due to a recent typhoon). I really thought the boat was going to flip over, but it was still cool. The island is quite small, and we found a map and walked over to this isolated beach, and went snorkelling (or shnorkeling if you’re Japanese). It was incredible. There was only one type of fish, but it was the ”Finding Nemo” fish, except zebra stripes and a yellow face. What was really strange, is that they didn’t shoot off at the site of us, they sort of swam around our legs. Then we went exploring the rock pools where we found hermite-crabs, starfish, oysters and other stuff I don’t know the name of. Then we had to jump down this 2 metre drop onto slippery stone to get out, and I decided to not land properly and cut my toe. The beach itself was incredible, but I couldn’t be bothered to take so many pictures.

last modified: 2005-10-18 11:05:51

What Water to the Body, Purpose to the Mind

So, now I’m Twenty-Three. Where does the story begin? Uhh.. Once upon a time, approximately 2 days ago, a Halloween party was arranged (the day before my birthday). The people living in the hostel spent the whole day preparing, cooking etc. I tried to help, but they wouldn’t let me most of the time, so I stayed out of the way. Then, at maybe 7 o’clock it started, on the roof of the hostel. There was tonnes of beer and food, and decorations etc. Really cool. Then at about 8 o’clock, everyone started cheering, and then they brought out a cake and said that it wasn’t a Halloween party, but a birthday party! And they sang happy birthday 3 times. which was nice.

Then something really strange happened. People started digging into the cake with their hands. No chopsticks or forks, just take a handful of cake and stuff it in your mouth. Then everyone decided it would be a good idea to smear it all over eachother’s faces. I told them in England we usually eat our cakes. Maybe it’s some sort of Japanese tradition. Then this guy came out with fireworks attached to his head. So I got drunk, then I went for a walk and then came back after midnight, and re-joined the party and smoked a Monte Cristo ”Petit Tubos” and went to bed. I know, not much of a Birthday.

My actual birthday day was less good. I went to see some caves (pictured below), and the journey was long so I took a book. ”The Collector”, by John Fowles, probably my favorite author. It was quite a depressing story, it must have done something to me, because I’m feeling quite homesick for the first time since I got here. And I’ve kind of run out of things to do, hence the title (a quote from ”The Collector”). Or rather I don’t have the enthusiasm to do them. or Maybe that’s the hangover talking! Promise I’ll try to get back to all your emails.

last modified: 2005-10-22 08:51:31

Mmm, sweetcorney, fibrous goodness!

Perfect timing. I was in the middle of witnessing one of the most entertaining natural phenomena I have ever seen, and my camera’s battery runs out. This was the first time I had ever had a chance to see a manatee. Up until then, I didn’t know what one was. For those of you who don’t know, they’re a kind of cross between a seal, an otter and a manic depressive. They wallow around in their tank with a pained expression, occasionally surfacing for air, or to sniff the jetsam of lettuce above. They’re really, really fat, too.

The phenomenon I am referring to is the witnessing of one of these creatures, in a single, well-rehearsed movement, take a shit and then catch it in its mouth and eat it. The lettuce can’t be that bad can it?

That was at the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium, which incidentally has the largest fish tank in the world. With 12 foot whale-sharks in it. A bizarre thing to see. and of course these eel thingies that poke out of the sand (pictured). Also, a dolphin show, which was pretty cool, but I’ve decided I don’t like dolphins as much as I used to. It’s unnerving to see their face, permanently fixed into a smile, even when they’re about to eat you (if your a tuna or something). I don’t trust them. I’d sooner trust a monkey.

There were many cool things, including this grumpy turtle, but eventually, I had to go catch the bus home, which I missed and had to wait an hour. In that hour, I sat at the bus stop, by this bush of yellow flowers, and every few minutes, a humming-bird would drop in to drink the nectar. They’re tiny. Like a moth. I tried to get a photo, but they all came out crap.

I’m currently staying in Okinawa City, which is north of Nago, in central Okinawa. It’s completely dead. The streets are all empty, about half the shops are closed down. Like a ghost-town. But the hotel is nice. Really nice.

last modified: 2005-10-27 06:59:39

My Kingdom for a Lawn

I know I’ve been slack, but it’s not all my fault. I’ll post more when I return to Tokyo. On with the story…

It was time to move, so I set off on the bus towards Nago, a large town in the north of Okinawa. On the way, I stopped off at this place called Manzamo, which means ”lawn seating 10,000 people”. The epitome or imagination is attributed to the King of Okinawa when there was a king (ages ago). It’s just a really beautiful cliffy place along the coast. I took photos but none of them did it justice.

Then I went to the Underwater Obeservatory, a bit further north. A bit of a waste of time. For about a fiver, you walk maybe 10 metres down this spiral staircase in the middle of the corals and see all the fishies through small portholes. Not really worth the effort (of walking about a mile with all my stuff on my back in the 30^oC+ heat. Got some nice photos though. (it’s quite rare to see a capital C with only one plus after it)

I moved into this place in Nago, it’s about £15 a night for my own room. It even had a bath and a tv! Albiet the tv had only three channels, one of which was a karaoke channel. It’s a right shithole, but I liked it.

I was walking around aimlessly, well, actually trying to find a cheaper place, when this Japanese guy got out of his big black car and struck up a conversation. As it transpired, he was an English teacher, and he invited me to come along to one of his classes on the promise of free food. So I went down, and only two people showed up and we went for sushi (pictured). A bit boring, but worth it for the ”you-don’t-know-who-I-am-but-you’re-paying for-my-meal and-you’re-not-intending-on-bum-raping-me” factor.

I stayed one night in my lovely hotel, then set off to the ORION beer factory in the morning. On the way, it started to piss down torrentially, so I sat under this stairwell, and took the opportunity, since no-one was around, to enhance my beat-boxing skills. After about an hour that got boring and it was still raining, so I read my book. A few hours later, it was still raining, and I was reading the annotated bibliography section of my book. In fact it rained all day and I did nothing.

The next day, I got on a bus and returned to Naha, to the cheap and cheerful ”Dormitory Okinawa”, which I would highly reccommend to anyone. That night, there was a fish-soup-party (it doesn’t sound so bad when it’s said in Japanese). We got the guitars out and had a jam, got very drunk and went to sleep. Back to Tokyo tomorrow.

last modified: 2005-11-01 06:38:42

In the Ghetto

I wrote this incredibly interesting entry into my notebook, and now I’ve lost it. So, you’re just going to have to live with a second rate entry. I`ll try to remember as much as I can.

After signing this bike, and saying goodbye to everyone, I was off to Tokyo. (I’m not superstitious, but black cats are incredibly lucky.) I got to the airport and checked in, asking for extra leg room. Obviously, obviously I was going to get searched at customs. I just open my bag ready for them after it’s gone through the x-ray.

Lucky I had surrendered my swiss-army knife which I’d forgotten to pack in my main luggage, I mean you could cause all sorts of trouble with a penknife on a plane. Like, opening tins of baked beans, or getting a stone out of a horse shoe, or filing my nails, or get laughed at trying to hijack a plane. It’s ludicrous.

Got to Tokyo, moved into the ghetto (Minami-Senju) into this hostel, which is mostly empty. There’s tramps every few metres on the streets sitting outside. It’s like a suburb of Centre Point. Then I spent a day walking around which was fun, and went to the science museum which was poor. And then to an Irish Pub, where I got an Irish Breakfast, which is like an English Breakfast, but with salad. It wasn’t so bad. With a pint of Blackthorn (it was after 6pm).

The next day, I worked. Surprising to me, it took about 2 hours to find an internet cafe. And it was horribly expensive, but they give you your own little room with a sort of chaise-longue type of seat. And you can help yourself to free drinks, like green melon soda.

All this is terribly boring, I know. I’m temporarily quite bored with Japan.

last modified: 2005-11-05 01:55:52

Meeting With The Wealthy Warrior

The day after the internet cafe winge, I decided to do some stuff, so I went to Yokohama to see this musical instruments exhibition. It took me about 4 hours to get there (when it should take about one) so I couldn’t stay for long. It was quite cool, met some cool people, like this guy who imports mango wood from Hawaii to make ukeleles in Japan.

Then I headed back to Shinjuku for an all-night ska show, having been promised that here, I would experience some real Japanese ska. And 10 hours and 11 bands later, I think I did, but I was very, very tired. That’s the thing with going out in Tokyo: either you have to go home at 12 to catch the last train, or you have to wait till 6 to get the first train – there’s no public transport at night and the taxis are quite steep. I couldn’t complain though it was great. Several of the bands were at least 10 strong, not to mention the hysterically funny (possibly in a bad way) front-man with the afro (pictured)

Got back at 7:30ish, a little too relaxed. 3 hours later I had to be up and out of the premises, as is their policy, so I joined my fellow homeless folks, as I had a 3 hour wait until meeting my new found english friend, Craig, an animator turned english teacher. We went to Yoyogi Park, well more just walked through it, to this rather cheap eatery called saizeria, which I would heartily reccommend to anyone who happens to chance upon it. A pizza for less than £2 and all you can drink (coffee, melon soda etc, no beer) for less than a pound. we stayed there for about 3 hours, by the end of which I had a totally green tongue. Craig got the train to meet someone, and I had a stroll through the park in the dark in the rain, which I absolutely thoroughly enjoyed for some bizarre reason. I felt, in an utterly hippy-like way, at peace with the world.

Needless to say I slept well that night. The next day, I made a run for it out of the terrible place I was staying, and headed up to Tama, to see Yuki. A friend of his, also a friend of my dad’s came to stay too, Mickey. Mickey was very cool. He brought dinner, which was coincidentally my favorite japanese food, and Yuki provided the wine. We all got drunk very quickly and then phoned England, taking it in turns to speak to my dad, which was nice. Then we went to sleep.

The next morning, the three of us set out, by car, to Mount Fuji. It was about a three hour drive. People have gone on at me about the colours of the leaves in Autumn, but it really has to be seen to be believed. I won’t go on about it. But it was incredibly beautiful. Then Mount Fuji. It’s a big mountain (3376m) with snow on top. We drove up to about 2000m and had some tea and then went home. It was very cool, but I would just be wasting my typing on you worthless, uncultured cretins. Mua ha ha ha. Maybe it’s the beer brewed from peas talking.

you’d think two hundred and fifty six of the fuckers would be enough…

last modified: 2005-11-08 16:20:54

Out of the Hobbit-Hole and into the Shoe Box

I went to the Sunshine 60 building in Ikeburo at night for a view of Tokyo. My camera said ”hold still!” but I have no patience. The lift up (and down) was supposedly the fastest in the world, but I was busy paying attention to the planetarium lights and sound effects. It was cool. 60 floors in, I don’t know, 10 seconds or something.

The next day I went to Kyoto. The shinkansen (bullet train) was extremely cool. I would not advise it for epileptics. It’s like being in the driving seat in Wipeout, or maybe like an aeroplane very, very close to the ground. Fortunately I’ve never had to experience such a thing. It was quite a bump, though.

In Kyoto I checked into yet another shithole, and went to sleep, woke up and went to Nijo-jo (or Nijo castle) It has a nightingale floor which is this floor that squeaks alot (quite an unnatural sound) when you walk on it, to warn of intruders. I was quite disheartened to find that it didn’t really work that well. It was 300 years old, though, so I’ll let them off.

Then I went to a few temple gardens, which you could explore and, then I got lost up a mountain, after straying from, literally, the beaten track, for half an hour. One of the places I went was the Ginkaku-ji, the ”Silver Pavilion Temple”, and the other was Nanzen-ji, the ”South Meditation Temple” whatever that’s supposed to mean. The gardens are immaculate, there’s workers combing every inch of moss. I even caught one with a pair of tweezers.

last modified: 2005-11-12 11:29:48

Nee-Naw, Nee-Naw, I'm a fire-engine!

Last night I went out with these american students of bhuddism from my hostel. We set off close to midnight, after a pre-session on the roof, then walked about half an hour to this Irish pub, where I bumped into Rich, this crazy, enterprising british tourist that I met in Tokyo, who’s just about to move to Moscow to his Russian ballet dancer girlfriend, to start a hostel. Sounds like he’s got it made. So I had one extortionately expensive pint with him and headed back, as I had done a little too much pre-session and en-route drinking anyway. As usual, I walked for a couple of hours, got lost, jumped in a taxi, got driven about half a mile, and got charged a fiver. Oh well. It was warm I guess.

If you ever come to Kyoto, make sure you hire a bike. If mylegs weren’t usually on the ground anyway, they’d have dropped off by now. Just looking at the map, I walked over 15km today, right from the north of Kyoto, to the south, and back again. Didn’t really do that much – went to see this Gold Pavillion thing, which is a pavillion covered with gold leaf. It looked fake. I would understand it if it was – it was burnt down in 1950 by a monk who was obsessed by it, so what I saw was version 2.

Flicking through the Lonely Planet guide to Japan, I noticed a couple of pages on the various japanese magic mushrooms you can find in the wild, entitled ”Enjoy Your Trip”, incuding varieties such as ”Red Long-Nosed Goblin Mushroom” and ”Great Laughing Mushroom”. You can tell whoever thought up the names for these things has done a lot of research into their effects. There is a disclaimer in the box, but on the whole it sounds rather positive. Encouraging, almost…

last modified: 2005-11-13 10:20:58

I Must Have a Compass in my Nose...

Greetings from the Largest Ghetto in Japan, namely south Osaka, according to this japanese rastafarian I met in the street. On with the story!

Yesterday, I left the hostel in Kyoto early in the morning to go to Nara. Nara was the first real capital of Japan (then Kyoto, then Tokyo). And there’s a 50 foot bronze buddha there too. I got to Nara station and walked to this park where the buddha is supposed to be. Instead I found hundreds of wild deer wandering around with their antlers sawn off to stubs (I guess to protect screaming children of tourists from being impaled).

I took a few photos of them, and then stopped after I saw a tourist running after one of them poking a camera in it’s face. The poor deer looked terrified. Such whit.

Eventually I found the entrance to the buddhas house which was guarded by a rather charming old deer (sorry, I’ll stop now) with cataracts in one eye, who bowed at you when you approached. So I returned the bow and went in. A sign said that the temple was the largest wooden structure in the world. I knew this was rubbish for two reasons: (1) It was half made of stone, and, (2) I saw another building in Kyoto that claimed the same thing, which was considerably more wooden than the former (I can’t remember the name of it but it was cool. It had solid wooden pillars, just like a tree with the bark taken off.)

Anyway, the buddha was considerably more impressive, although quite predictable. I knew, in my minds eye, what it would look like and… it looked exactly the same! Except that the lonely planet said that his head had fallen off on several occasions, so they had to replace it, and the colour was slightly different. but it wasn’t.

Then, to Osaka, on the same day. This place is great! If there was anywhere in Japan I would most likely be jacked, it would be here. Just like home! I caught myself subconsciously feeling for my wallet after passing a shady fellow in the street (not something you have to worry about in Japan at all, usually), and even some old dude selling ”The Big Issue” (although, with much less enthusiasm than his London-based counterparts)
Piccies to come!

last modified: 2005-11-15 10:48:29

That's it, Really...

Made a day-trip to Kobe, and went up a cable car for a view of the city. Up the mountain was a herb garden, which I sneaked into without paying, saving myself a grand sum of 200 yen (£1). I thought it was going to be lame but it wasn’t so bad. There was this colossal greenhouse with a mini rain-forest in it, and mini pineapples. And then there were herbs.

Opting to walk down the mountain to save the fare of paying to take the cable car down proved to be most beneficial. I followed signs for something saying something something waterfall in Japanese, and found it to be a series of waterfalls along the journey back. Maybe four or five good ones. Then I headed into town to find some Kobe earthquake museum, to find that it had been knocked down in favour of a pachinko parlour. Oh well. In Osaka this one more night, and then tomorrow morning back to Tokyo on an 8 hour bus ride. Woohoo. It could be worse.

last modified: 2005-11-16 13:07:21

I need a holiday

The 8 hour bus ride from Osaka to Tokyo wasn’t so bad. It was a double-decker, and I got a front row seat at the top so I could indulge myself in the childish pastime of pretending to drive the bus.

So, back to the same ghetto of Tokyo, to the same hotel, where I was warmly greeted by the staff, this time I was offered ”special room”, which I could only describe as special in the way that it was the exact replica of the previous room.

Next day, I worked then went out to the opening of this bar in Roppongi owned by this guy called Mark Lyn who used to sing in the slackers. It wasn’t so fun so we headed off to all night karaoke which was much more so. We rolled out at about 5 or 6 and headed to Macdonalds for coffee/nap/english lesson, where I was taught how to describe Japan’s national super-hero’s strengths and weaknesses (who’s also incidentally made out of bread)

Next day was spent largely in bed, interspersed by infrequent visits to the lavatory. Watched 3 films and went to bed again.

When I woke, I set off to Akihabara to decide whether to fork out £50 for one of those gameboy micro thingies, and thought better of it and went for a sunday roast at some pub called ”The Meguro Tavern” which would have been quite good had I not been graced with an impromptu performance by an amateur mick jagger impersonator at the adjacent table.

Globbits to tweek and phase.

last modified: 2005-11-21 13:43:40

Allo, allo (good mowning)!

A few days ago, I went to see the Hokusai exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum. Hokusai is probably the most famous Japanese artist there is. He did that ”big wave” picture. He’s more famous for doing woodblock prints than paintings. It’s strange, you go to an art gallery to see the real thing, or you can just look in a book for a copy, and save yourself the hassle. But because most of the stuff on display was a woodblock print, it meant that they weren’t really originals, more like copies, so I might as well have just looked in a book, but it was fun.

When I got there, I went up to the vending machine to buy a ticket, put my money in and pressed the ”student” button. Nothing happened. Then I heard a voice, and then the slot where I put my money disappeared and a hand appeared and the voice asked for ID. It’s like inside the vending machine there’s a pygmy japanese person pulling all the levers doing an electronic voice. So I handed over my expired student ID, and it was ok.

After the museum, I went to the Sony Building, which is like an exhibition of the latest, and unreleased, sony stuff. It was pretty poor, to be honest. There was nothing very clever. Except for these tiny spy cameras. They were pretty cool. And these headphones that cost about £1000 (250,000 yen). I tried them for 5 solid minutes, and arrived at the conclusion that they were crap. (but comfortable).

Then maybe the next day or the day after, I went to Asakusa, or Akasaka, I can’t remember which one, but I went to one and my friend went to the other (by accident) Then I went to the right one, and we had a look around – some temples and souvenir shops, and then to Odaiba, by ferry.

Odaiba was cool. We went to the Toys ’r’ Us where I insisted on posing as an over-excited reindeer (pictured) and then we went to the coca-cola shop (and you can just imagine my awe) You could buy everything from coca-cola, to, uh, coca-cola cellotape or other stuff. Then we went to some weird toyota design museum place where there were loads of weird chairs.

The next day I worked. Woohoo. Then the next day I had to go to the immigration office to extend my visa for a grand total of 8 days. The woman told me to get in the yellow queue, which I waited in for about two hours, until I realized she was lying, or colour-blind and meant the blue queue. Another 2 hours later, my passport stamped I went home. Then I did some more work then went to bed, woke up and wrote this.

last modified: 2005-11-26 00:57:47

...To The Centre of the Earth!!

So, finally, I have a chance to fill you in. The other day, I went to this thing called ”Design Festa”, which is supposedly the biggest design event in Asia. It was quite cool. There was a little too many girls tinkering on the floor of their stalls making girly stuff, but apart from them it was pretty cool. Things of note: the above plaything for children, a section for things constructed completely out of paper (3 dimensional christmas cards, a paper parachutist launcher that catches the paper parachutist and takes him up a paper conveyer belt and drops him out of the paper plane again), multitudes of crazy japanese artists, peddlers and musicians.

The next day, I went to see a band called ”Idol Punch” from a reccommendation of Dave from blacktax (check the website even if you don’t like music.) Finally a truely Japanese crazy punk band. The concept of the band is pretty much Suddenly BURST OUT with this racket of blastbeats + screaming when the audience least expects it, like half-way through having a conversation with his mother on the phone (yes, that old chestnut), or at a really inappropriate point in a much slower, calmer, normaller song. Pure genius. Go see them, even if you don’t like music. These guys will never be famous.

After stumbling home, going to sleep, and waking up bright and early, I made my way to Disney Sea, which is sort of like Disney Land, but for grown ups. Exept it wasn’t. It’s right next to Disney Land in Tokyo, and has less rides, but more stuff you can walk around and see. (and shops where everyone looks at you funny when you do your monkey impression with a monkey hat on, which, if you think about it, sounds quite acceptable).

I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun, I was running round like a lunatic through the jungle near the indiana jones ride, posing victoriously on totem-poles, and ballet dancing to swan lake as it bellowed out of the PA at closing time. And of course there was The Mountain Of Death. I don’t really know what it’s called, but the name sounded fitting.

last modified: 2005-11-30 13:38:00

Heart Attaaaaack, Heart Attack Man!

Greetings from Sapporo. Sapporo is in Hokkaido, which is a big island in the north of Japan. I had to wake up at 4am in Tokyo, break out of my hotel, and jump on the first trains of the morning to catch my flight. I didn’t really have to, but I wanted breakfast at the airport before I jumped on the plane. Got to Sapporo at about 8ish, and to my new lodgings. It’s some youth hostel (Sapporo House) described as run-down by most sites and guide books, but it’s actually quite incredible. Slap bang in the middle of Sapporo, and exactly two and a half times the size of my last place.

So, what’s there to do in Sapporo? Well, as most people know, Sapporo is also a brand of beer, obviously named after the town in which it is made. So, naturally, at 9am, I headed down to the factory to check it out. It turned out that they’d converted it to a shopping mall. Apparently I’d gone to the wrong place. But they did have a crazy Santa climbing up a chimney of the old factory. It took me a while to work out why he would be climbing the chimney. Maybe because he was drunk? or he wanted to steal some beer? Why on earth? Finally I got it, and was glad I’d not asked anyone beforehand.

I checked it out anyway. Pretty bog standard, except for a colossal pet super store! I love pet shops, they’re like zoos for domestic animals that you don’t have to pay to get into. There were these 8 foot cat toy house things, ingenious hamster torture implements, about a thousand square feet worth of clothes for dogs, and of course the pets. Everything except for monkeys, most notably reptiles. There was this black snake which wa about as thick as my finger. I can’t stand snakes so I quickly vacated to the frog section, where they had big bright yellow frogs, like they’re made out of shiny plastic.

After that I went to check out som botanical garden, but it looked very, very closed, and pretty boring, so I went to find an information centre, to plan the rest of my excursion. I got to this place I read had information in English, and looked around and couldn’t find anything of any help whatsoever. Suddenly I was tricked by an Australian English teacher into talking to his Japanese students. I asked them about what’s good to see in Hokkaido, and they said they didn’t know, except shopping, because they’d only lived here for the past, um, lifetime. Terrible.

Back home, empty handed, I decided to take a bath in the hostel’s big shared bath. I forced myself to stay in there for 15 minutes. After I got out I almost had a heart attack followed by about 15 mins of feeling very faint. I have a great photo of my face looking like I’m dying, but I can’t put it up here I might put you off your tea.

Next day, as if the previous evening wasn’t torture enough, I set off on a day trip to some hot springs near Sapporo. This is something I had wanted to do in Japan since before I set out. Sitting in some rock pool of hot naturally heated water, surrounded by snow, and snowy mountains, quietly contemplating nonsensical thoughts, such as why a rich man would want four tiny mechanically detonated nail bombs. Answers on a postcard.

I got back to Sapporo, and went to this famous ”Noodle Alley” place and had dinner. It was pretty bog standard. Then into this Ski shop where I found this balaclava that makes you look like spiderman. I still can’t decide whether to buy it or not.

last modified: 2005-12-02 13:06:08

The Snow's Always Whiter (on the other side)

Today, I decided to go to the Sapporo Art Park, which is a big park with little log cabins where they make things out of wood, glass, porcelain etc. And also they have a big forest full of weird sculptures. It took an age to get there, and when I finally arrived, I discovered that the sculpture forest place was closed until April. The guidebook said nothing about that. So, I decided to use my masterful techniques at escapism, this time, in reverse to break in. No-one being around and the barrier being of less than 2 feet in height, and consisting of a chain made it significantly easier.

It was probably the best time to go – everything covered in snow (except the sculptures), no-one around, except for the odd animal, just wondering in this wonderful snowy forest that framed the sculptures really well. The above, whilst not my favourite, made me think, why else would a woman be lying naked with a horse. No, I can’t think of one reason.

The giraffe was my favourite one by far, but it was in this bamboo box, I guess to protect it. There was also a fat man, a perfectly conical wigwam, a, um. I’m boring you.

So, I spent a couple of hours here, in the cold, then off to the REAL Sapporo factory. It was actually called the sapporo beer garden. There they had a museum and a restaurant. The museum was free, and cool. This picture is supposed to describe how only the finest hops and water are used to make sapporo beer. Then I smelt some barley and it smelt like something else that purportedly grows in sapporo, of the green smokeable variety (despite keeping my eye out, I still haven’t been able to locate any in the wild, out of season, methinks).

After checking that out, I went to the beer tasting place where you could get half a pint of sapporo and a bag of nibbles for £1. Bargain basement. I should have bought a t-shirt thinking about it. Happy about having spent practically nothing on being a tourist that day, I opted for a Ghengis Khan Barbecue.

The Ghengis Khan Barbacue, for those of you who do not know, is a speciality in Hokkaido, where you get a plate of meat, and a plate of vegetables and a beer and cook the food on your table, and eat like a Khan, or a Ghengis, or whatever. Usually it’s all you can eat, but it was only lunch time, so I got just the one plate. And of course the beer. I was trying to go for a genuine smile on my face, a smile due to the prospect of daytime drinking with a decent excuse. I got to get me one of those litre mugs! Look at it, it’s as big as my head! (mum, I’m not a pisshead, it was a special occasion – the second day of Advent!) The food was pretty much as you expect it to be. And the beer, too. But the Elton John christmas songs made it much more festive, and as I left the place, I felt almost… christmassy. ahh.

last modified: 2005-12-02 13:34:13

Every Day's A Holiday in Sapporo

Hello from Tokyo (a free internet cafe in the Apple Store in Ginza, Tokyo). The title of this entry refers to the fact that almost everything I went to see in Sapporo was closed. So it was time to take a trip. First to this zoo in a place called Asahiyama. It’s notorious for having animals in their natural habitats or something. The zoo itself was covered in snow, which meant a lot of the animals had gone into the warm, but some of them were out, like the above lion, and several kinds of penguin. I never realized that you could get penguins that big! There was one that was maybe waist height on me. I tried to talk to him, but he didn’t understand, then I realized he was Japanese.

The big cats section was cool, a panther, leopards, lions, tigers etc. The rest of the zoo was mostly closed, except for this place where you could see jelly fish. Apparently some people keep them as pets to look at for relaxing. They are wonderful to watch.

Next, to Otaru, which is this small town along the coast. Went to this restaurant that looked like an old viking hall (with the appropriate music too), and big beer brewing vat things in the middle of the room. The waitress said they were real, and I said I wanted a beer from it, and it was delicious. It’s called ”Otaru Beer” if you ever get the chance. The restaurant itself was a huge wooden structure, but surprisingly nice and toasty, with candles hanging from the 30ft ceiling. And various cast-iron thingamyjiggers everywhere. It was cool.

Next day, it was time to explore. Its a nice place to just have a walk around. The only thing to look at really, were shops. A shop that sells only seaweed. Every shop was playing christmas carols, and I was getting so sick of it, until I heard ”The Payback” (James Brown) so I went in for a few minutes. The sold mostly tourist rubbish, except for this plant that you keep in a goldfish tank, sort of as a pet (you buy special food for it). It looks like a ball of moss, and apparently after a few years, it grows to the size of a tennis ball. Bit of a waste of time if you ask me. Then, as if I wasn’t cold enough there, it was time for ice-cream.

Next day I returned to Sapporo, I went to go and see some stuff. Most of it was closed (national art museum, national sculpture museum), but one thing I found that was open was the Maruyama ski jump, which was used in the winter olympics. You know, like that one in James Bond. They wouldn’t let me go down in a bin liner, so I had to take the ski lift back down. Then to the ski museum, where you can go on the ski jump simulator. I crashed into the audience.

Next day, I went to this hot bath place, where I spent most of my time in a giant plant pot full of scorching water gazing absently into the open sky above.

Got back to Tokyo last night, and headed to my new hostel one stop away from the previous ghetto, in Minowa. It’s called Hotel Matsushima. Being only one stop away from the ghetto of Tokyo, I was surprised to find that it was quite a pleasant area, some of the streets were even lined with willow trees. Then I turned the corner to my hostel, and heard the faint echo of gangster rap. Then I realized it was coming from where I was staying for the night. There’s no escape.

The security guard in the apple store is currently browsing the software section. Quite an appropriate time to receive that long awaited five-fingered discount.

last modified: 2005-12-08 04:49:57

THE END (almost)

I go home in 2 days. So right now, its just seeing friends, and buying presents. A few adventures, including witnessing unspeakable acts performed by Idol Punch, in a club called 20,000 Volts. It was quite cool, but a little loud, the power to the whole venue got cut off and I went to grab my bag in the dark, but ended up groping some girl’s leg (by accident), which led to some suspicious looks for the rest of the night.

The new hostel is pretty cool, also has a few token weirdos. The first one I met explained to me how he used to use telepathy before he got a mobile phone, and also that he gets search every time he flys out of US. Apparently, because he fits the profile. Definitely serial killer material if you ask me.

Can’t do pictures because I can’t plug my camera into this lame-ass computer, but I haven’t taken a whole lot of good photos anyway. Two more nights. Maybe one more post (if your lucky).

last modified: 2005-12-12 01:07:45

From Dismal Depths To Dizzying Heights

No more partying, no more adventures, no more ghettos, no more temples, and certainly no more capsule hotels. Tomorrow, it’s back to ol’ blighty.

So, where was I? Ah yes, yesterday. I was utterly under the impression that it would be my last night in Tokyo before returning to London. So I won 1st place in stupidest person currently residing in Japan, when I only realized it was actually the day after when I looked at the date on the ticket I had just bought for the train to the airport.

Never fear, because Marek still had a few tricks up his sleeve. After meeting up with Yuki to pick up a few items left at his house, and to discuss things such as the new paper-thin battery from hitachi and the wonders of robinson’s marmalade, Marek spent the day roaming around Shinjuku. A brief stop at an English pub for a swift pint and then to the capsule hotel.

I can’t really be bothered to recount the experience completely, but here is a precis. When I first crawled in, it was not so bad. You can sit up in it. My head was buzzing with thoughts of what I would do when I got back to England, but I eventually got to sleep, amid the stumbling, snores and farts of the drunken salary-men in the adjacent capsules. At about 4 or 5 am, I woke up, and realized I could barely breathe. These things are made of moulded plastic, with no ventilation whatsoever, so I felt pretty shitty. I woke up and opened up my capsule for some air and went to get some water. I got back and lay down, only to be interrupted at intervals of exactly 15 minutes of peoples alarm clocks waking them up for work all the way until checkout. Bummer. So no sleep there.

The next day, the prospect of another night in a capsule hotel was quite depressing, especially seeming as this time it really would be my last night. A friend had tipped me off about a site where you could get cheap rooms in luxury hotels, so I booked myself into a place called Keio Plaza in Shinjuku. When I say cheap, I mean cheaper than £100 a night. When I arrived, I got the feeling I wasn’t supposed to be here, just from the pure decadence of the dŽcor. Marble everything, porters who insist on grabbing your luggage from your clutches, the over-apologetic attitude of the staff (even for Japan).

The room itself is pretty nice but the best thing is the view of the city from the massive windows. There were little cool things like the fact that the mirror is heated in a certain place so it doesn’t steam up when you have a bath. One thing that pissed me off though, was the mini-bar – when you take a drink out of it, it instantly electronically bills your account for whatever you just took out. I realized this after removing the most expensive item. Oh well.

I met up with a friend, and we bought some food from a department store and had a picnic in the room infront of the window.

Then to Polestar the bar at the top (pictured at the top of this entry). It was like something out of Gotham City. A waiter insisted on pulling out your chair when you sat down, The bow-tied waiter on made an excellent vodka-martini, which took me about half an hour to get through. It’s about 2am, and I gots to be up early to catch my flight. Goodnight, and Goodbye Tokyo!

last modified: 2005-12-14 17:01:50

The Human Snowball

Another week of snowboarding in the alps. A tough life. Highlights of the week include Marek falling over and landing on his neck, twice; Marek getting stuck in the snow and requesting the use of a ski pole to unstick himself, Marek getting lost in the fog on the border-cross and deciding just to ride all over it etc etc. It’s always an adventure.

No, really it’s been great, but much more painful than usual. The slackers gig on the night I get back should be amusing since at this rate I’ll be dancing like an old granny.

So guess I’ll see you all when I see you, if I make it down the mountain alive that is.

last modified: 2006-04-06 16:36:39

Top of the morning to ye

Yo, hello, from Dublin. Uh lets see, yesterday, I think me and Barney pretty much covered the major things to see, then met up with Liam later and got (inevitably) trashed. And then we went to sleep and woke up here (an easy internet attached to a subways – already got 5 stamps. what more could you ask for)

last modified: 2006-05-08 10:26:38

White Boys for Homeopathic Massacres

After 3 hours of trying to escape London, and another 3 on the Motorway, we (Alan, Ben, Pete, and I ) arrived outside The Packhorse, a tiny venue on top of a tiny pub in Leeds.

We had just missed a band called Concentration Champ . Apparently it consisted of one guitarist, one drummer, no vocals, tights over their heads, and much contortion.

Then we got totally upstaged by the Rape Jazz of White Boys For Gay Jesus or White Boys For Mandatory Abortion or whatever they were called. Then we played and were terrible, but very well received (maybe it was too loud to make sense of).

Then we went back to the White Boys’ house. Or should I say mansion, said to be haunted, complete with coach-house and ginormous walled garden. Oh, and the recording studio in the basement. And then all this booze magically appeared. That’s the problem with drinking in the place where you’re staying the night… You don’t feel at all compelled to stop. So we got utterly tanked and went to sleep too late.

Next day, everyone, for some reason, got up quite early. It was almost like there was a good, constructive reason to get out of bed. Which involved getting drunk, and Alan and this other guy drinking wax out of a candle thing and making a cast of the inside of his mouth. Then we went back to the house and stayed up til 4am taking it in turns to play songs to eachother (pictured) to an audience of 2.

Then we went to bed and woke up then drove home.

last modified: 2006-05-18 16:14:28

I Crush You Like A Rice Cake!

The whole family minus my dad all flew to Hong Kong today, via a place called Qatar (a small country near Saudia Arabia). Much to my disappointment, the pilot decided to circumvent Iraq, which was clearly in our flightpath (illustration 1).

18 hours of sitting and 0 hours of sleep later, we arrive in the rather sophisticated terminal of Hong Kong airport. Then after some squabbling (a prominent feature on this particular family excursion) we ventured outside in search of the hotel.

You go outside here, and you’re instantly drenched from the heat, the air which seems to be saturated with humidity. It’s actually not that hot though (quite bearable). The actual place sort of reminds me of Japan, but not as good. Haven’t really given it a chance yet.

Headed off to SoHo (South Of Hollywood road) for some local cuisine, and experienced the double decker buses, double yellow lines, even street names like ”Portland Street” in this totally un-british climate.

last modified: 2006-07-05 17:32:28

Cucumber Sandwiches, Toast to the Queen!

For something a little different, I got my family to write you a poem about our first day in China…

China, Day One
For breakfast we had Dim Sum
It was yum, yum…
It was really, really, really, hot because of the sun.

NOTHING to do with me. We’re a family of scientists, not poets (I’m positive I didn’t need to tell you that) Back to the story…

Then, we went to the goldfish market, where they had tiny bags of them hanging up like socks in M&S. They even had terrapins (70p each according to Wojtek who is currently half passed out from exhaustion on the bed next to me) He was quite rightly disgusted by the site of this.

After seeing a few other specialized markets (electrical, textiles, general unuseable junk, knickers), we indulged ourselves in High Tea of utter decadence at The Peninsula, some ultra posh hotel with marble everything etc.

At under a tenner a head it was a steal. Multiple toasts to the queen were declared, scones were scoffed, embarassments were made out of ourselves. I’m surprised we didn’t have to be escorted from the premises.

My mother then dragged us to the light show, which I haven’t tried to erase from my mind for the single selfless purpose to warn you never to do it. That’s all I will say. Hong Kong. Light Show. No! Okay?

last modified: 2006-07-05 17:44:02

What a Wonga.

The day before the day before yesterday (two days ago) was our last in Hong Kong, so we jumped on a boat to visit some nearby islands. The first and only stop was Lantau Island, home of a 60 foot Buddha. Maybe it was because I was tired, Maybe it just really wasn’t that great, but I got bored with it very quickly. I felt guilty for being unappreciative. Then I think Buddha decided to punish me with karma in the form of food poisoning. We went for a vegetarian meal made by monks in close proximity to this Buddha, and it was utterly revolting. Don’t do it.

In the evening we went up to Victoria Peak, the main attraction of Hong Kong, a view of the whole city from the toop of a hill. It was pretty spectacular, but you can only spend so much time taking it in, so me and Wojtek headed off to Wan Sai to meet his friend, Dominika. We met her in a bar that seemed to be rammed with old white men and young chinese hoes. We left pretty quickly and went to a place called ”Neptune II”. Apparently ”Neptune I” closed down and all they have left is number two. New And Improved. Pretty much the same clientele of the last place except many, many more women of ill repute. I spent most of the time looking at the ceiling or the floor or anywhere except the hoes, despite having my ass pinched every 5 minutes.

At about 1 am, we headed off in search of beer and found ourselves (by accident) in this gigantic marble room we really shouldn’t have been in. The policeman kindly showed us the way out. Then we jumped in a cab and headed off to Dominika’s hotel.

She told us there was a pool on the roof, so me and Wojt left her and her friend to investigate. We got to the 29^th floor and took the stairs up, and surprisingly, it was open! 30 floors up, a wonderful view, a lit pool all to ourselves, half a dozen cans. What more could you ask for? What we didn’t realize is that the door had no handle on the other side, so we were locked out on the roof. I was utterly petrified. It was 4 in the morning. We needed to be up at 6:30 to catch a flight. After about 20 minutes of panic, Wojt managed to climb over some gate and go into the building and open it from the other side. We were saved! We got the other guys and went for a well deserved swim.

We left at about 5, and Wojtek insisted we got one last beer. We did good. One hour after we’d gone to sleep, we were up again, and Wojtek decided he needed to do some press-ups, and I decided I needed to put a matress on top of him (pictured).

last modified: 2006-07-08 18:02:15

My Dinner Has Hepatitis

So, next day, obviously up, early early morning. We jumped on a ferry to go to Shanzen, an airport on mainland China (Hong Kong is an island). The airport was really scary. It’s sort of in a ghetto with lots of housing projects. I heard of a bus load of tourists getting hijacked. The airport was very clinical and minimal, all the people were cold and unfriendly. I can’t describe it. First time I’d been to a communist country, so I guessed that it was what the rest of China was like, and I really regretted coming here. But as soon as we got to Shanghai, I was pleasantly relieved.

It is weird here though. Everyone is trying to take you for a ride, or wind you up. If you ask for directions they’ll point you in the opposite direction. I read that Chinese people look at westerners as donkeys. They think you’re an idiot.

We took a train from the airport that travels almost as fast as a plane (with magnets) which was fucking cool. It goes so fast that scenery shoots past you at a unearthly speed, and then you realize it’s only going at half speed. Petrifying.

We met up with Dad, and went to the hotel. It’s pretty pricey at £40 a night per room, but the rooms are apartments with kitchens, living rooms, double beds, cable tv and the beers in the minibar are 60p. You can’t complain.

So, Shanghai. Today, it rained a shitload. It was like a typhoon. Luckily we were stuck in a furniture shop with my new favorite chair . When I grow up I will own this chair.

We did lots of stuff today. Highlights: a tunnel to go under the estuary of the Yangtse that has an ultra-tacky neon light show. It was actually quite cool. They have a hooters bar here but the girls have no breasts. A fast food chain called Kung Fu, that probably has hepatitis. This is possibly the best place to get pickpocketed in the world. Umm, apparently the watermelon they sell on the streets are gone off watermelons that they leave in the utterly polluted yangtze to soak up the goodness and make them plump. don’t do it, so I’m told. Everything has hepatitis, according to my mother. It’s easier to appease her. I should be a poet. Then we went to the Westin hotel bar on floor 50 (makes your ears pop for a £9 glass of wine, and then back here to write this. Amen. or Hail Satan depending on your disposition. I haven’t got that many good photos, but some great movies. Wait for the Anne Robinson/Global Warming/Square or Triangle/China Documentary movie to find out more

last modified: 2006-07-08 18:19:13

All Shanghai-ed Out

We’re still in the apartment block in Shanghai, but about to leave for Xi’an (home of Terracotta Warriors). Wojtek wanted to watch the final, so he’s been up all night. I just managed to get him out of bed because checkout is half an hour away.

Yesterday, me, Wojt and Monika set off by ourselves to do some siteseeing of our own. We went to People’s Square, which is sort of the centre of Shanghai; a big park with a few buildings and sculptures in it. We wondered through, and found an exhibition of Italian art and industrial design, so obviously I was obliged to go.

It was pretty cool, but most of it was impractical. There was a bit of photography here, I’m not a fan of photography, but there was a portrait of some guy on death row, it was the best photograph I’d ever seen. He looked like a skull. Like he knew he was going to die, and he was utterly petrified, but he also looked evil, and that he understood this, so he knew he deserved to die so there was no point in fighting it. All that from a photograph! I took a photo of the photo, but I don’t want to put it up here, nameless. But it was beautiful, but terrible. Ask me, I’ll show it to you.

In the evening, we went to dinner with the parents. My dad saw this thing you can order which is a dumpling with a straw in it, so he had to have one. Wojt was the first to try, and successfully managed to burn his face off.

After dinner, we went out to meet a friend of Monika’s. He took us to this Morroccan style bar with shisha and half price beer in the middle of People’s Square (a tactical location to avoid the 2am curfew). We stuck around for a couple of hours and left Mon and her friend. In the cab ride on the way back, the driver had a tv playing football, but the sound was the tennis. He didn’t seem to mind. Neither did I.

last modified: 2006-07-10 04:42:26

Like a Lion, in Xi'an

We caught a sleeper to Xi’an, home of The Terracotta Warriors. The train was pretty dull, but I shotgunned the top bunk. We got to our hotel which was, how do I say? less than satisfactory. The minibar included pork luncheon meat. It had a price list for anything you might break. Such as the chairs (£40 each), or the window (£10), which gave us stupid ideas, but the prospect of the police getting involved was enough to put us off.

We set off to see the terracotta army. (that’s 7,000 life-sized carved clay warriors, mostly smashed up by baddies) It was quite cool. I don’t know why, but it didn’t really have a profound effect on me. I tried. We had a tourguide whilst in Xi’an, who took us around all the sites, but couldn’t really tell us much about them. In fact we couldn’t understand what he had to say when he did tell us something. And he kept taking us to overpriced souvenir shops so he could get his commission. One place he took us was a tea shop in the ”Xi’an Nuclear Instrument Factory”

Next day we checked out of the hotel. It took a while because they had to check our rooms for any breakages/theivery, and sure enough Wojt had pocketed himself a towel, which he reluctantly retrieved from his bag and returned. We went to a Feng Shui museum where we were introduced to the concept by the gayest person I’ve ever met. He sounded like Stephen Hawkins, and when explaining to us about a dog/lion creature, he told us ”Everything go in, nothing come out. It has no anus.” Exit only. He sounded extremely disappointed.

We also went to the Shaanxi Provincial Museum, which was full of old pots, which was nice. And some pagoda where I made friends with a stone buddha. Got back on another sleeper. Next stop Beijing.

last modified: 2006-07-14 15:19:56

Chickens Have Racial Issues Too.

We arrived in Beijing after getting another sleeper from Xi’an, and got to the Holiday Inn. I thought it was going to be rubbish, but it was probably the best hotel I ever stayed in. The minibar was a whole cupboard. We went out to see some sort of shopping centre, that sold just about everything. I bought 32 jack plugs and a t-shirt that says GUITAR IS THE BEST. Then, my dad insisted that since we had travelled half way across the world to explore this amazing country, we should go to B&Q, where he subsequently disappeared in some sort of quiet elation.

Me and Wojt went and got ourselves measured up for tailored suits for a grand total of £60, pretty reasonable. For dinner we had a black chicken hotpot with mushroom tea. It tasted as bad as it sounds. The chicken wasn’t died, it was actually black when it was alive. Maybe they take their feathers off and leave them in the sun.

Next day, we went to THE FORBIDDEN CITY. Up until then I didn’t think you could go to it, but apparently you can. And for some reason, the entire population of China decided to visit it on the same day. The Forbidden City was the Imperial Residence for about 600 years, but since their last Emperor, they’d sort of Disney-ified it – painting it in garish unchippable paint and installing souvenir shops everywhere. The palace garden was beautiful though.

last modified: 2006-07-19 19:52:13

15 Ways To Die. Choose One!

We went to Dongyue Temple which is the municipal Taoist temple in china. It’s like an office building with different departments of Heaven (and Hell). Each department has models of the people that work there, such as my monopedal friend on the left here. Most of the departments had normal names, such as Department for Bestowing Happiness, Department for Longevity, but then there are more sinisterly named ones such as Department of Implementing 15 Kinds of Violent Death.

People hung prayers written on little red blocks at the departments which were relevant to their prayers. The most popular apart from Department for Bestowing Happiness, were the Department of Official Morality and Department for Distribution of Medicine, which is proof of what these people are worried about in this country.

Then us kids left the parents to go to Factory 798, a disused factory complex, which had been squatted by artists, designers, architects and sculptors, and turned into a modern art gallery village of sorts. We arrived at the gates in a taxi and the sentry guard told us we had to get out and walk. We wondered around this maze of hidden galleries for about 2 hours. I wish I could have spent more time here, if you ever go to Beijing, look this place up. A huge proportion of the stuff had a political message of some sort, and there was something to do with Chairman Mao in practically every gallery.

We had Peking Duck for dinner which was exceptionally crispy (being in Beijing). Then me and Wojt decided we wanted to see what the nightlife was like. We got about 50m down the road before escaping in a cab after being harrassed about a million times asking us if we wanted laydee-bar or laydee-massagi whatever that could possibly be. These people must think we only have one thing on our minds. That’s not true, I think about breasts, too.

last modified: 2006-07-20 13:34:52

No, not goodbye, just... Bonjour

The next day, we jumped on a tour bus to visit the Great Wall of China. We arrived at the button, having been warned by the tour guide that fights often broke out between tourists and souvenir hawkers. Within about 5 minutes the tourguide had engaged in exactly such a fight, which made for riveting spectation.

On our way up the hill to the ”Slide Car”, we met some weird chinese bears. For 15p you could buy some mouldy cucumbers and watermelon rinds to feed them. You throw it and then they sort of jump and catch it in their mouth. Oddly satisfying. I didn’t know whether to feel sorry for them or glad that they were being fed. I couldn’t exactly ask them, they were chinese.

In order to get to the Great Wall, you needed to take a ride on this slide car thing, which was basically a bright green rollercoaster, but much slower, some seats with duck heads coming out of them. Why China decides to piss on it’s most important monument, a Wonder of The World, the biggest manmade structure in this way, I don’t know. Despite this, the wall was inconceivably massive, the views were incredible, and the climb intolerably strenuous. (good exercise). Here’s my James Bond Face.

Then, after visiting, and almost getting kicked out of a silk factory for trying to sleep on the exhibited goods, we went to a food market and Wojtek had snake. Tomorrow it’s back to Ol’ Blighty once more.

last modified: 2006-07-20 13:35:50